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Sunday, October 22, 2006

This is not a political blog, and was never intended to be such. Yet it seems that it has taken such a turn since I've decided to reply for Paul Edwards email. I guess I am to blame after all.However, I was asked three questions by AngoGermanicAmerican. Whether he asked them mockingly or seriously, I do not know. But I am glad that I was asked, and I am glad to answer them so everybody has an idea about what Delilâh thinks aside from "some bloggers suck". But it's this once that I don't intend for to happen again, because Delilâh isn't into politics and would rather keep her political points of view for herself.

What is your hope for Iraq; in other words, what would you like to see in terms of government, in terms of economic system, and in terms of the role of religion in the affairs of state?

This is a question about my hope. So I suppose I'm free to daydream…

In terms of government, it's simple. I would love to one day see a secular, liberal government that was elected on bases of merit and competence. Clear of political thieves and benefactors and frauds and back-door dealers. Responsible enough to pair words with action and up to the task of imposing legal authority over every other authority that anybody can claim, including that of religion and that of semi-independent, ethnic-based states-to-be. For once I would like to see my government pure Iraqi rather than Shiite Arab or Sunni Kurd or I don't know what Turkoman. No more American dummies and puppets, at least. They can invest all they want but they can just pull their hands off politics. They look bad enough with their hands and arms in to the elbow.

Economically? Iraq is a very wealthy country, potentially. I would love to have a decent government that won't be too busy loading oil money into their pockets and their anonymous Swiss-bank accounts, draining the country from every single resource it has. I would like to see us exporting oil for decent prices and making our own fuel instead of selling it only to buy it as Benzene. I would like to see foreign investment that isn't synonymous to theft and fraud and scandals. I would like to see my country turn into a splendidly wealthy state where people live to enjoy their lives, as it is potentially, like all of those states in the gulf have. Not as it is now, a pitiful country whose residents and natives are pitied by the world, and who seek life elsewhere because their own country isn't capable of offering them the kind of life they would like to live.

Religion? Two words: "BACK OFF!". I've always believed that religion is a "thing" between a human and his creator, should he believe in such a thing. In a country as diverse as Iraq, diverse in all senses, it's utterly unfair to have a religious system because by all means it will be imposing believes and practices that a fair portion of the society is unrelated to. It's neither democratic nor sensible.

Some people might argue that religion is for all times, I say no. Religion is for you to keep at home; between you and your God, regardless whether you call him Jesus or Yahweh or Allah or even Paul Edwards or Buddha. And nobody with any other interest than controlling you has an interest in how you practice your religion. Religion has become the harness that Iraqis are lead by, therefore it’s a must to put it out of the picture with all of its control-freaks of figures. Al-Sadr was assassinated some 20 years ago, Al-Hakim's family have lost some of their men as well, all thanks to Saddam Hussein. But is your dead and your injured any less important that you would raise such authority-thirsty figures above your necks and turn your backs to everybody else?

Second question. What is your realistic hope; in other words, what do you believe is realistically achievable in the short term for each of the previous questions?

Politically, the differences are deepening between each major portion of our society that the inclination towards separation is growing. People are too busy fighting one another, the government is too busy harvesting what they've planted and making bank-transfers and buying real-estate in every other place in the world than Iraq. And so, we're heading to a vast abyss. At some point, we should all be happy that there's still a place on the map called Iraq instead of Sunnistan and Shiistan and Turkomenistan and Kurdistan and whatever else those brilliant minds can come up with. Many may disagree with me, but isn’t the average Iraqi citizen too enthusiastic about whatever Al-Hakim, Al-Sistani, Al-Dhari, Kaka Masoud and others are saying? And aren't they all willing to commit stupidities in the name of their belief? Even those bloggers that I somewhat dislike have written about conversations with the taxi-driver and the bus-driver and whoever else who praised this figure or that figure and idolized them blindly.

Economically? We're going broke. People are leaving the country, the government is getting really rich not in the governmental sense but in the individual sense. We're selling oil for absurd prices and we buy all sorts of consumable fuels for absurd prices compared to the fact that we can manufacture them at the cost of dirt. Every foreign investment/reconstruction contract has this far been a fiasco. Everybody blames their failures on terrorists that all of a sudden there's an impulse of wondering whether everybody is benefiting from terrorism at some point. Everybody except for the citizen, that is. Our natural resources are wasted, and we've never even explored the possibilities of tourism before to explore them now, under such circumstances.

Religiously? Long-live Sistani, long-live Dhari…and if anybody has problems with that, there are "anonymous terrorists" to take care of them. Sometimes not anonymous at all, they go by Badr Brigade and Something-something-al-sunna, et cetera. Next step could possibly be the Islamic not-at-all-democratic Republic of Iraq, or Islamic Shiite State of Iraq alongside four-five other tiny states that every neighboring country would love to annex or at least manipulate and control under the cape of religion.

Third question. How? What in your view needs to transpire, and in what order, for Iraq to become what you hope and desire it to become?

Back to daydreaming…

Any change, from my point of view, requires the following:

Flushing all the puppets down the drain and finding a decent, honest and competent leadership from within our society instead of importing formerly-Iraqi English and American citizens who had been "madeen rejleehum bel shames" for the past thirty years to rule us in the name of their "struggle". A person whose networth somehow happened to be equal to that of the Iraqi Government doesn't represent me. He definitely doesn't after officially turning khazeenat el dawla to wereth beit abooh, and feeling free to spree with it. Balla Alla y5alekom, cut that crap. Kul wa7ed y9e7 ani 9arle 30 years da ana'6el fe sabeil Iraq 7ur wa musta8el, tale yeje wo ylem el ma8som, some millions of dollars, wo yeflet bel da5al wala 3abalak bayeg she. Like Iraq owes them those millions for their short-lived so-called struggle. Not at all like they had been enjoying peaceful, reasonably wealthy lives under the not-scorching-at-all English sun or enjoying the shade somewhere in Washington. And then after the fraud, the theft and all, they go like "We, the muna'6eleen". Men jeebi 7ay9er brasna 5eir.

Making a nice-neat collection of all of those religious figures and shoving them all where they belong, in the back of the political closet, where nobody can hear their greedy and distorted screams for authority. Where hopefully they cease from manipulating simple minds in the name of God and religion, and where they stop acting like the God-sent saviors (Somewhat like Paul Edwards, just in a more appealing manner) and where they stop serving Iran, Saudi Arabia and whoever else for green. If they're God-sent for real, they shouldn't be upset about being told to shut up once and for all, aren’t they counting on God to reward them after all? Well they might as well wait for him and stop expecting people to reward them for their religious righteousness. There are too many Messiah-wannabes out there already, so it's a no-thanks situation to me.

Spreading political consciousness amongst people, because there's a great many of them that are unaware of the fact that their votes are what brought those mongers into authority. Of course, in a perfect world, it would be absolutely true. However, it's still somewhat true even in the now-distorted Iraqi world. I don't think Allawi, Maliki or Chalabi would dare raise their voices with such garbage if they didn't have a public base of support (Could as well be bought, we know it happens). People need to realize that their word is what makes Iraq what it is, and what creates those idols.

Spreading Iraq-ism instead of "Shiism" and "Sunnism", Arab-ism or Kurd-ism or whatever other ism that has been spread. I believe that we all need and want a safe and prosperous home where we can settle. And I believe we all want to be equally respected and never demeaned on ethnic or religious bases. I believe that every decent Iraqi wishes for stability and security to spread in his country, wishes for it to flourish, and wishes for equality. What better manner is there for all of that than being overall an Iraqi and a human being? Since when did religion or anything else make less of a human being of a person? Since those Super-Duper Grand Ayatullahs and Mullahs and Turban-Heads came to the picture, and since our dear Kurdish leaderships started stuffing our brothers' heads with nonsense about how much Arabs hated them and how they should hate back and fight us to get their rights. Whatever happened to Iraqi Patriotism?

Spreading something that is impedingly missing, a moral-sense. Here, it's a very specific portion of our society who had found no better way to counter their poverty than immorality. There are such people everywhere in the world. But everywhere else in the world, or at least for the most part, there's a legal system to take care of them which is something we unfortunately do not have in Iraq, thanks to our lawful government. (Of course there isn't, if there was the government wouldn't be there still). The soldiers who had taken off their uniforms as soon as they had been informed that they will be deployed outside their mother towns, the masses and masses of young mercenaries who do the dirty job for money such as those in Badr Brigades and Mehdi Army and Ansar al-Sunna and God-knows-what-else. There are masses of people who take minimal wages as a reward for their immorality, youth learning that the fastest way to improve their lives is corruption and that to be feared is to be powerful and to live well, and hundreds of other examples. After all, writing in a butt-kissing manner has less of a destructive effect than those who hold a gun in the name of I don’t know who, and spill blood. There's a certain degree of decay that a human being can reach, and once they surpass that, they should be put behind bars!

Of course, our sense of democratic awareness is also in a very pathetic shape. I, myself, have written about ITM and how disgusting I found the post. Except for that afterwards I reviewed myself and found my response highly anti-democratic and indeed hypocritical. The exact same thing I criticize occasionally about people. We need to get used to the idea that the variety of opinion exists just like the variety fingerprints. We need to learn how to take a deep breath to calm down, how to think and then react; how to accept counter-arguments, how to assess them and how to accept the fact that they might be right to embrace. At least, how to live on peaceful terms with all the variety of opinions that is out there without hostility and without letting it affect the fact that whoever person we talk to, regardless how disgusting we find their opinion, is still a human being and a brother and a fellow citizen, an equal and very much with good traits that we tend to close our eyes to while raving about their repulsive opinion. We need to learn that criticism doesn’t change belief, that not everybody sees things from the same angle. We need to learn that to differ is human nature, and that different people don't always have to be enemies. But personally, my enemy is he who does harm, because words enough don't kill, bullets do and he with the bullet is the one I abhor.

Concerning the Coalition or Americans or whatever you wish to call them, I've got nothing to say. They're there already, and they won't be leaving soon no matter what we say and what we do. I would wish that they would get busy trying to invest or reconstruct in Iraq with as much stealing as they had been doing in the Gulf, just not more like what's happening in Iraq now. I'm against them in the sense that invading Iraq was a supreme stupidity that was badly planned. I'm against them for being the puppeteers who brought us all of those parasites that we have been rid of some thirty years ago, in the name of struggle or money or whatever. I'm against them for acting like Iraq is beit el 5allofohom, excuse the terminology, and like Iraqis are 5adam abuhom. Iraqis who do are to blame as well. I'm against them for this mere fact, that not many people were happy under Saddam Hussein's, but even fewer are happy now. Ridnahom 3on 6l3aw Fr3on. I'm against them for the fact that supposedly, the most powerful state in the world has invaded us and cannot seem to control a bunch of outlaws and maniacs with the excuse of not wanting to interfere with internal policy. I guess invading was the greatest intervention, cut the crap.

How can anything get done? I do not know. I am sure there are brilliant minds out there with leadership skills and enough decency to make the change. I've never lost faith in humanity, or at least I try not to. It will take time, years and perhaps decades, to make the change. However, whether it will happen at all, I doubt. Things had only been heading from bad to worse.

Now, excuse me for the lengthly post. But my major concern is Iraq and Iraqis, I don't care who or what they are...for all I care, they're Iraqis and that's all that matters.

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Getting home earlier than usual today, I was checking my mailbox and having a little chitchat with Chikita about everything and nothing, when I found this funny email in my inbox. The email is by Paul Edwards, an Australian blogger who both strongly dislikes me and strongly likes the war, and who thinks he knows the simplest thing about being Iraqi.

Having read the email, my reaction was very much similar to that of an elementary-school teacher who is just about to try to explain the concept of multiplication to a group of 7-year-olds. In other words, understanding anything is not an option for an outcome of trials. So I thought "I'm not replying to this". However, I thought I'd forward the email to Chikita, and perhaps spend a little while reflecting upon it afterwards. Eventually and after some discussion with Chikita, I thought I should write a post about it!

Paul Edwards:

"Greetings from Australia. I am one of the Australians who STRONGLY supported the Iraq war."

Me:

Good for you...

Paul Edwards quoting me:

"And it takes either a naive kind of a person or a real idiot to actually believe that Americans/Coalition Forces came to Iraq only to "free us" and "look after" "

Paul Edwards' comment:

"That's exactly what it was for. There were other reasonstoo, e.g. security of the free world, but I was so happy tobe able to finally get rid of a terrible dictator who used torape Iraqi women."

My comment:

And you would know because...you've been surfing the web, watching TV or reading your local news paper? What do you think is going on in Iraq now? Too much freedom and happiness, thanks to you?

Chikita's comment:

" هممممممممممم… وهسه شديصير يمه"

Paul Edwards quoting me:

"our interests". Nobody would really believe that the United States would spend billions of dollars to free Iraqis for just nothing in return"

Paul Edwards comment:

"What exactly do you imagine that the US is getting in return?What do you think the other members of the coalition aregetting in return? We are doing you a great favour, and youare so ungrateful. Well, we're not doing it for you personally,we're doing it for people like the ITM brothers - people whoactually appreciate freedom."

My comment:

First, no I'm not grateful and nor the majority of my people are. And if you think you know better, then good for you. What they're getting out of this? Well, let's see…Oil, reconstruction contracts (Specially since the job is more like bringing the country back to the 21st century, from the 5th century!). I don't know, do names like Pectel and Halliburton ring a bell?By the way, I wouldn't like to owe people like you a dime, let alone a home. I owe you nothing. The most you've moved was your mouth in support for our case (And when it does, I bet everybody thinks it shouldn't!) , but I'm the one who had to move out of the country and leave my life as I'd known it because of "your" mistakes and your supreme intelligence that turned my used-to-be-a-wreck home into nothing less than a swamp. Now, if you're not a government official or at least a soldier, stop saying "we", because you don't fit in the picture.

Chikita's comment:

".شهالخريط…همه بس جانوا يريدون اجر وثواب لأبا عبد الله يمكن"

Paul Edwards quoting me:

Nobody buys the "White Man's Burden"

Paul Edwards' comment:

That is a misnomer. It's actually "free people's burden". In my opinion, free people have an obligation to help liberatethe rest of the world.

My comment:

Being enlightened as you are, and obviously spending massive amounts of time in front of your screen in support for your case and not doing anything else, I would suggest you google "Rudeyard Kipling".

Dear Paul Edwards; please try contacting our favorite "mother-duck" of the Olivebranch Network, Luke. He's Australian and I believe he would be delighted to talk you back to your mind. He really knows far better than you would expect anybody who's never been anywhere around the Middle East to know, because people usually know as much as you do.

By the way, please do not try to learn Arabic. It might be too complicated for you while you're trying to sort why "the Australian government, the US government, Al Hurra, Al Jazeera and various other places" don't quite care and while you "spend countless hours thinking and thinking, trying to crack Iraqi and anti-war mentality".

UPDATE: Some 8 hours after posting the original post. 3 Paul-Edwards-Comments later...

Dear Paul Edwards,

Please get a life, and get off my blog. I've come to think that showing any response to you was just as idiotic of a reaction as your thinking happened to be. Please allow me to clarify the fact that you're just another ignorant, stubborn blogger whose ignorance, stubbornness and absurdity make no difference whatsoever in the world out there. I hope you know now why ""the Australian government, the US government, Al Hurra, Al Jazeera and various other places" don't really care what you think.

If you want facts, check blogs like Chikita's that I've mentioned up there. Her post "Free in Baghdad" might enlighten you about the current face that life has in Iraq.

Finally, whether you do that or whether you keep your unnoted absurd little opinion, please make sure not to flood my blog with nonsense. After all, if anybody can feel free to post nonsense here that would be myself. I have no intention to put up with nutcases who think that God talks to them and that they experience Divine Revelations. Whether you understand what I have just said or not, allow me to put you in the picture about this; if I ever happen to read another word in either my mailbox or my blog that has your signature, trust the fact that it will be swept off out of my sight even without trying to decipher the mumble that your brilliant mind has come up with. So thank you forehand for not wasting my time or yours (Though I'm sure you're life is a waste, but anyway!) and not writing a word here anymore.

P.S. Are you sure your next post on your blog isn't about the plan plotted by Martians to enslave human beings and take over Planet Earth?

Sunday, October 15, 2006

It's been a while since last I've updated and I was actually intending to update, but haven't had the time or inclination to do so because I've been awfully busy lately. This is a must, however. This is what I had to say when I first read through the ITM post, and this is what I actually think about it.

Freedom of speech is nice, but freedom of lie isn't. Since the invasion people have been dying by gigantic figures, and if ITM doesn't see that in the hundreds of thousands of casualties, IRAQI casualties, then he is in need for an urget reality check. Never fancied Hussein, but people haven't been dying at such a rate then. And it takes either a naive kind of a person or a real idiot to actually believe that Americans/Coalition Forces came to Iraq only to "free us" and "look after our interests". Nobody would really believe that the United States would spend billions of dollars to free Iraqis for just nothing in return. Nobody buys the "White Man's Burden" or the "Democracy Protectors" cliches anymore. ITM himself doesn't. But I believe that all of his believes are subject to change according to his needs, and his most urgent for now is to get out of that hell he's living in. I can understand that, but as Miraj says..."Smart but low. Very low".

Now, judging by ITM's posts, he's neither naive nor an idiot. But it seems like he takes everybody else for an idiot. Some americans, who just happen to be republican redneck ignorants, believe that the war was for a good cause. Iraqis, in the other hand, don't buy that for the most part. Specially those inside, like ITM himself, who happen to know better just by living there. When an Iraqi blogger, whose blog is dedicated to naive americans, calls coalition forces "Our Allies" and "Our Friends" and starts talking about "Our accomplishments" and so on , it just wrong. It sounds like a pathetic effort to bring about more...I don't know, public support? Sympathizers? People who are willing to find a way to save "That brilliant mind" out of there? It's just wrong in the sense that it's so fake, so much of a lie that I bet my money that ITM himself doesn't buy it for real.

When a well-known blogger who also happens to be credible in the west tells a lie, it's awfully misleading to everybody who reads that lie. And it's misleading because now we have many americans, just as many who have been checking ITM, believing that we all think like that. There you go, an Iraqi living in Iraq and telling you that things will be just great, wouldn't that be your truth if you've had no clue? If there's anything to being a serious blogger as he is, and as I'm not, then it's that delicate matter of credibility. But I guess when you're really desperate, credibility is the least of your concerns.

Why does it bother me? Because it's a lie as I've explained. Because if I show it to any friend, they would believe it based on the fact that he's an Iraqi who lives in Iraq now. Because I, as well as many others, realize that it's no more than some serious American-Ass Kissing post. Because I'm wide aware that ITM himself doesn't believe in all of that anymore than he believes that Saddam Hussein was a hero. No, not an idiot and not a naive man. He's just a liar there.

ITM: Where you should go when you need to get your Timberlands as good as new after a long day hiking in the wilderness, but only if your passport is "occidental", preferably American. Everybody else? "Sorry, mo 5adem il 5alofokom".